My editor just told me that Gambit is apparently shirtless for exactly 20% of both issues 1 and 2! (Though butt shots are only in #1 so far.)

That’s right — it’s time for a comic which balances out the gratuitous female nudity in mainstream comics by offering some gratuitous male nudity in mainstream comics. And of course, this follows the recent evolution of “sexy Namor” in Uncanny X-Men, and the news that blonde bimbo Havok is set for a starring role in Rick Remender’s Uncanny Avengers series.

In related male nudity-news, it appears that Andrew Wheeler of ‘him off of Comics Alliance‘ fame recently realised some powerful subtext has snuck into the main AvX event, as he ticked off the names of the members in Marvel’s Phoenix Five team:

I read the Comics Bulletin interview of Asmus. It’s interesting how intent Asmus is on getting readers attached to Gambit as a character, rather than focusing on the story. Read a crime story, watch a heist film, or watch a CSI TV show: you’ll get a neatly packaged bit of crime fiction. Asmus might be excited about doing a mash-up of various elements, but he appears to be trying to come up with things for Gambit to do from issue to issue to issue. If someone doesn’t find Gambit immediately appealing and attractive as a character, why read about him?

There’s also the problem with his power. The description of the power on Wikipedia is incoherent. Take the first sentence: Gambit is a mutant who has the power to take the potential energy stored in an object and convert it to kinetic energy thus “charging” that item with explosive results. That use of the power matches what I saw in VERSUS #2, but it has nothing to do with potential energy. It’s closer to matter-energy conversion. The Wikipedia description of his power, if it’s accurate, makes the power practically unusable.

I read the Comics Bulletin interview of Asmus. It’s interesting how intent Asmus is on getting readers attached to Gambit as a character, rather than focusing on the story. Read a crime story, watch a heist film, or watch a CSI TV show: you’ll get a neatly packaged bit of crime fiction. Asmus might be excited about doing a mash-up of various elements, but he appears to be trying to come up with things for Gambit to do from issue to issue to issue. If someone doesn’t find Gambit immediately appealing and attractive as a character, why read about him?

There’s also the problem with his power. The description of the power on Wikipedia is incoherent. Take the first sentence: Gambit is a mutant who has the power to take the potential energy stored in an object and convert it to kinetic energy thus “charging” that item with explosive results. That use of the power matches what I saw in VERSUS #2, but it has nothing to do with potential energy. It’s closer to matter-energy conversion. The Wikipedia description of his power, if it’s accurate, makes the power practically unusable.